Rodney Smith creates a luxurious dream.
For me, photography is all about being outside in the world, and interacting with it—the most important thing is finding the right location. To shoot a book cover for Neiman Marcus, I’d gone down to Buford, SC, and spent a week with a location scout. It wasn’t until we passed this cypress grove an hour outside Buford that I said, This is it. After getting a permit, we arrived with the model early the next morning. I’d asked for a little boat, and we’d also picked up the dress: a $17,000 gown from Milan that had to be shipped back the next day. So we had to work fast.
